Moonwalk
by Smile Back
Summary: Have you ever wondered why the witch was banished into the waste? Well, she would like to know, too. And she is about to find out!
1. Chapter 1

**Hello there! I do not really think it is woth mentioning, but here it comes: I do not own anybody or anything out of Howl's Moving Castle. In this case I used the backround from the book.**

 **So in this story the witch has her own demon who is not nearly as nice as Calcifer and there is a bit more backstory then we get in the movie. It is not really important, but just in case you were curious. It will be quite obvious that this story takes place long before Howl was even born or stepped into Ingary so sorry if you wanted to read about him.**

 **A last Warning: Various english teacher of mine accused me of writing nonsense and always took points for my bad spelling! Good luck!**

The witch was staring at the moon. There was nothing else to look at, the waste was barren of all life. Except her of course. How could the King banish her?

What ever did she do to him? So perhaps she should not have cursed his nephew, but he was such an annoying little twerp, and besides he was still alive and would probably stay like that for quite some time. No harm was done.

The witch sighed 'What to do?' and pecked bored at her fingernails. "How about some good old revenge?" proposed Lily, her ever faithful firedemon. "Revenge sounds so crude. We are way to good for that." opposed the Witch and stared back at the moon. "So you are going to sit here on the dust and dirt of the Waste and do what exactly?" sneered the demon, "Are you going to built a castle of sand? Do you not need water for that to work?" The witch huffed in exasperation. "I just might." But the witch had no intention to build a castle of sand. If she was getting a castle it would be made of the finest crytal Ingary would ever lay eyes upon.

Lily hummed a bit and let her deep voice echo around the landscape. "My dear, " she hesitated a moment "What shall become of us? Where did we go wrong?" The witch grumbled "Well, how am I supposed to know that? I cannot go back to the King and ask him, now can I?" she was getting flustered. She does not like to admit to weakness, she usually would never hide anything from her demon, the demon that grants her the powers to bespell anyone she likes, but she does feel just a little bit threatened while using said powers. It was quite strange. "You cannot?" Lily asked astonished. The witch grind her teeth. "I would never even get close enough, as you well know! I would be killed as soon as I step a foot out of the Waste."

A sigh was all the demon had to offer on that.

"If we would have known before all this went wrong." lamented the Witch and stepped back to have a better viewpoint of the moon. "If we could just step back in time..." She contemplated for a few heartbeats. "Say Lily, can we travel back in time?" The demon watched her carefully. "I guess."

"So if we went back in time, we could find out what made the king do this to us, right?"

"Possibly."

"And then we can fix it!"

"Well, we could try. But I do not think it would be wise to mess with the way things are."

"Ah, do not be like that, my dear. We will not have to go back very far. Just a few days!" The witch could see the relief on the face of her demon. "And besides you would be able to set things straight if I somehow ended up erasing my very existence, right?" The demon laughed weakly. "Of course I would. It would be terribly annoying to find another human who knows how to appreciate my generous gift of magic." The witch smiled in reply, but feeling a chill deep down in her chest. She got that sometimes.

"So, how do we travel back in time?" The demon looked at her strangely.

"Alright, I know, I need to figure it out myself!" the witch proclaimed, dusted of her hands and looked searchingly over the Waste, maybe the answer was just waiting to be found.

What fallowed was a most entertaining show of the strangest behavior. The witch performed strange dances, she collected strange stones, she ate strange things, she sang strange songs and then she did various combination all at once. All the while she was trying to get a grasp on the concept of time. Every exercise she untertook was interspersed with magic and very draining. Lily watched the proceedings with mild interest and a glowing complexion. "I just do not understand, how you can look great all the time, supporting me with your magic and not even breaking a sweat!" panted the witch after she let herself fall into an undignified heap on the ground. A worried look crossed Lily's face "Ah, but I am a demon. We work different than you humans." The witch gave a tired smile. "I wish I would work this way."

She took a few moments to catch her breath. "You glow just like the moon." she stated, but the demon only scoffed: "I was a star, we glow much brighter and much more beautiful than the moon." The witch looked into the skies and back to her companion. "But look at it! It shines so bright!" Lily rolled her eyes. "Of course you would think that, but the moon is not very far away compared to the stars and you can still see those, now can you?" The witch was very thoughtful. She held her gaze on the moon and then took a step back. And then another and another. "I do not think, that the distance makes much of a difference." She proclaimed and turned on the ball of her foot. Lily was about to point out the fact that a few steps are not quite the distance she was referring to, when the world started to spin an blur and suddely stood still all together. "What was that?" The witch asked and tried to see a difference in the world around her.

Then She heard voices in the distance.

"NO! You can't do that to me! Do you know who I am!" screeched a woman. "You are hereby known as the Witch of the Waste! If you value your life you will stay here woman!" came the stout reply of one of many soldiers of the king. " You can't leave me here!" raged the woman, who indeed was the very same witch of the waste.

"We did it! Exclaimed the observer. "We stepped back in time!" She did a little victory dance and then grinned at her very best friend. "So we do it just like last time and travel further back!"

The demon just smiled at the humans enthusiasm.

The witch closed her eyes, took a deep breath and walked slowly backwards. Nerver once picking up her feet completly, after three steps she turned on her feet and... Nothing happend. She could still hear herself screaming and insulting everyone and everything but no blurring or spinning. "You did not turn on your heel last time. But on the ball of your feet." interjected the demon which fallowed the witche's progress just a little bit worried.

"Aah, right. Thank you." The witch looked at her feet, as if it was somehow their fault for not turning properly, and then tried again.

This time she did get the world to spin and blur around her. She still stood in the Waste, but if she really did travel back in time she was not banned yet. So with new vigour she set out to investigate what happend to let the king banish her to the waste!

 **I plan to write another chapter. Chaos and mayhem all around with a time travelling witch!**


	2. Chapter 2

Okay so I hope this works! (This site totally confuses me!)

And I got three reviews! so awesome. Now I feel kind of bad for not checking up on this story. But here comes the second chapter (hopefully I do this right)

Chapter 2

Kingsbury had a really beautiful market. If you are looking for those delicious little fruit you will find them as well as the most brilliant jewellery in all of Ingary and the lands beyond. So naturally the Witch thought this would be a good place to start her mission. First of all she needed to find out what day it was and then she needed to find some kind of disguise. The Witch does not know much about the guidelines to travel in time but she was pretty sure, that she did not want to get herself in more trouble than she was already in.

"Darling, do you not think you should actually do something?" Lily drawled while keeping an eye an the bustling streets. "But Lily, how am I supposed to chose? Look at all these magnificent clothes!"

The vendor who kept looking at her suspiciously dared to point out some material he thought the disshelved woman could actually afford. The poor man was wondering why those strange people always came to him. That woman looked like she was dragged through dirt and then left to on the streets to die. Not that his assumption was far from the truth but it never even occured to the Witch that she looked anything less than spectacular, in the positive sense that is.

Therefore her response to his impudence was quite explosive. "Now listen here, young man!" Of course the vendor had 40 years of selling fabrics under his belt and would normally not be described as young, but a Witch that has all the magic in the world at her beg and call surley has not to worry about wrinkles and therefore had a little skewed perception of age than your average human beeing.

"If you ever want to sell ANYTHING in your life ever again!" She made sure to take a dramatic little pause, "You will treat me with the respect a woman of my caliber is due. Do you understand?" She fixed him with a much practised look and waited until her opponent nodded his head. And although the Witches 'look' is not very intimidating the way the demon eyed the man who delayed her fun was very much reason to start playing along. Because those eyes looked like they would suck out your soul. So with a shudder and a very forced smile the man pointed the looney lady to the more expensive section of his stall.

The Witch gave him a smile and continued to browse around. "Oh look, Lily! Is this not the most prettiest thing you have ever seen?" She held a scarf that gave a pretty good impression of liquid gold. "I simply must have this." she wraped the scarf around her shoulders. "Oh! And look!" enthralled she plucked a red something out of the pile. "It has no sleaves..." it was said as a statement but lily's eyebrow worked well as a question mark. "Yes well, but it will look simply fabulous." with a sigh the demon motioned for her to go on.

But aparrently this was the only thing the woman wanted from this stall and after a short declaration of :"I'm done." she moved back into the crowed.

"But you need to pay!" excaimed the vendor and tried to grab onto the golden scarf, unfortunetly for him Lily grabed his wrist before he could do anything else. "I would not do that if I were you." She gave him a smile that was all teeth and started to fallow her Witch with a satisfied air about her.

That evening the verndor went to the local bar, that duo of wickedness had cost him a small fortune. Those were his best wares they took away, and hard to come by, too! He had them from a desert country his brother-in-law went to a while ago. It's not like he could just go there and get more.

"Oh no! They got you, too!" was the first thing Ben exclaimed when he reached his usual corner. After seeing his stunned face Ben placed his hand on his shoulder. "The Duo of Doom! They were on the market today! And they robbed us blind!" He new he was exaggerating, because those two could not have taken everything... just maybe a lot more than was good for a flurishing market.

"I swear! I send my boy after them but it was like they vanished!"

"Maybe so, but have you seen that bloody wench? She would have eaten the lad alive and then we would be in deep shit!"

"What do you mean "We"? You would'ave ta go to Sunny and tell'her how ya lost her son!"

"She took my most valuables!"

"What? You ain't a man anymore! I would not want to explain that to ya lady friend!"

"I can't believe nobody caught them! She was sparkling like the crown jewels by noon! An' we all went ta get the off'cers on her ass."

At the same time the Witch and her best friend/ soul sucking demon were seated at a nice little café and discussing the plan for the days to come. "We really are lucky! We went back 8 days! That should give us enough time to figure out what happend. I mean someone must have done something to get me in trouble! As far as I know I have not been in the Capital this month... I mean you know before!" she stressed the words to make Lily understand that before meant her time in freedom and not as a fugitive on a trip through time. But soon enough she was distraced by the sparkling of her new bracelet, and then the feel of her very nice dress. She must look simply great! She concluded and ordert another cake to celebrate her freedom. Tomorrow she would find out where she went wrong. Tonight she will have a nice, restful sleep. Somehow she could not get the heavy feeling off of her, and hungry was she, too. All the time! It was quite frustrating to be so beautiful and powerful... at least sometimes. She let her gaze wander out the window and grinned. At least she had it better than those fools. Always trying to reach something they will never get. Maybe she should help them a little bit. Make them see what they should know all along, so they would know their place. "Lily, how would I best word a curse..." She trailed of trying to find the words to describe her wish best, but Lily was already sitting eager in her chair. "A curse, dear? What a marvellous idea!" The Witch hummed and twirled her fingers a bit. "Yes well. Look at all these fools, they really should be more gratefull for their existence do you not think?" Lily nodded.

"Yes, they should. Just think about it, they are never happy with what they have but they never consider that tomorrow they may have nothing at all anymore."

The witch agreed and then she spottet the sign of the bakery. "Like the bread they are not thankful for, right?" She got up and left the café to get closer to the bakery. With high concentration she fixed her eyes on the swinging wooden sign above the door and started to mutter under her breath. Every few seconds she would swish her hand this way and that.

A minute later the sign hat squiggly little burn marks and the Witch turned on her heel and left. That was really enough for a day. Tomorrow the people of the town would know what they have in life.

Content with her good deed the witch went to find a hotel for the night.

Thanks for reading!


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